Year: 2011

A Good Turn, A Parting Gift, and Back on the Bumpers. It was Christmas Eve, my pal Lennie and I, were spending this last afternoon before the big night, up the fair, on Brick kiln patch. We hadn’t any money for the rides, but just to be around the fairground, […]

It seemed to us kids growing up between the wars in Wolverhampton that every park, public square or open place in and around town had its horse trough or drinking fountain. Though by the late thirties, the Corporation had stopped building troughs, as the automobile was gradually replacing the horse […]

This is how I recall the area around St John’s Square in my youth and the lasting impression I had from my first look inside St John’s Church, when I saw for the first time Wolverhamptons celebrated artists Barney’s Alter-piece, “The Descent from the Cross” on its backdrop of oak. […]

The telegram said ‘killed in action’ and the tears flowed. But this wartime hero had a cold nose and four legs. Doris Blakeley nee Berry recollects a wartime memory: Doris Berry was born in Chester Street, Whitmore Reans in 1921, but when she was five her grandmother who had a […]

This well known roadside inn at Penn which was included in the sale of a portion of the Lloyd estate 24th & 25th September 1901, is connected with a very curious story bearing its past history. It is one of the oldest licensed houses in the county, and the present […]

The German High Command called it, “Operation Cerberus”, it passed into history as “the Channel Dash” or the “Channel Fiasco” depending on how you see it. At a meeting at Rastenburg, Hitler pressed for the pocket battleships Scharnhorst, Gneisnau, and Prinz Eugen, to be withdrawn from Brest, were they had […]

We start in the mid 1960’s. The northern end of Steelhouse Lane looking from Gordon Street on the left across to Jenner Street on the right and through to the Cleveland Road / Bilston Road island. At that time this 200 yard stretch of rented late Victorian Villa properties similar […]

Will this be a never ending story, or another fairy tale of our times? A Transplant is urgently needed ! For this right “Royal” mess. I can imagine how sad old Wufflers feel as they travel as I do each day past the old Royal hospital and gaze at the […]

“Only an Old Directory of Wolverhampton” One of the first books on Wolverhampton I ever owned was a small directory from 1838 published by Joseph Bridgen and it has been the source of many a story I’ve done over the years. It was said as a practical printer Mr Bridgen […]

It was said at the opening of The Civic Hall in 1938: Modern architects have rediscovered the old axiom of the Greeks, that “the greatest utility is the greatest beauty,” and Wolverhampton’s Civic hall supplies a practical illustration of its truth. “Where did it all go Wrong?” I can hear […]

My grandson Daniel is always telling me I should do more topical posts So what’s more topical today on the 5th May 2011, than the Alternative Vote. It has already split the party faithful and caused battles in the commons, But all this bad behaviour practised today mainly by the […]

Colin Whitehouse visited the site recently and left the following enquiry in a comment on Stafford Street was my Playground. Colin asks “Did I remember The Dan O’Connell, Limerick, and the Warwick Public Houses?” Well I thought it would be simpler to answer his querie this way with a little […]